The Top 10 Factors That Slow Down Success
- Jenny Marie
- Nov 8, 2024
- 5 min read
Success could be defined as the achievement of desired goals, whether personal, professional, or financial. Working with small business owners for more than 20+ years, I've come to observe it always includes all three when entrepreneurs list out their goals. So what slows down their ability to achieve success?
Unfortunately, it's not just about working hard and being disciplined. Oh no, it's much more than that! You could be consistent but consistently doing the wrong thing or missing a key red flag that is preventing success. This post is a bit long but I wanted to go into detail about the reasons we give for slow success on our home page.
Let's go over the top ten factors that can slow success down and examples for each:
Lack of Knowledge
One wants to start a business but has never done it before which causes them to make a lot of mistakes prolonging the achievement of success.
Not knowing how to correctly manage their money and do their own bookkeeping which causes debt, no profit, or even business failure.
Not knowing how to effectively market oneself in business which means one could miss out on reaching the right audience, leading to wasted money on ineffective marketing efforts.
Not Being Organized
Lacking a proper system which helps someone remember and do their tasks can cause missed deadlines and appointments, lost deals or customers and surely overwhelm.
Disorganization is a common upset to employees in businesses. This means morale lowers, communication is lost, tasks do not get done, clients get upset, money is wasted or lost.
Not having a complete financial management system in place can lead to issues. Either someone is handling the bookkeeping incorrectly, or essential systems are missing—especially in more complex businesses like construction. This can result in tax issues, cash flow problems, and poor financial decisions based on inaccurate information.
Indecision or Poor Decisions
Overthinking and overanalyzing decisions slows progress, causing missed opportunities and delayed actions.
Second-guessing oneself after a decision has been made causing the person to make additional, incorrect changes or decisions.
Poor decisions, such as spending money in the wrong areas, can leave a business without enough funds to operate or invest in growth. For example, overspending on unnecessary office space or high-end software that isn’t essential can drain resources, making it difficult to cover payroll, marketing, or inventory costs.
Wearing Too Many Hats
Wearing too many hats often leads to overwhelm and exhaustion, missed tasks and bad PR (Public Relations).
Having attention on so many different areas causes one to lose the focus they could have if only doing one hat. This can lead to not prioritizing correctly, making mistakes and producing slower than normal.
Getting bottlenecked because only one person is doing everything which means they do not have the manpower to take on new business or move forward.
Being Overwhelmed
All the above examples could contribute to being overwhelmed but here are other examples:
Not having efficient systems and training in place for staff so all of them are still going to the owner for help or questions.
Not having an organized system in place to manage one's own To-Do's, future To-Do's and ideas. This would be separate from the team's organizational systems which streamline workflows and get everyone on the same page.
Personal stress occurring which adds to the stress of running a business and the person is as their wits end.
Lack of Discipline
Discipline can also be related to consistency and confront. Here are examples:
Not keeping up with the management of their books and therefore lacks an accurate financial scene to make decisions from. Also, waiting to do these tasks causes a person to guess on transactions because they can't remember how they spent money.
Not having the confront to look at sales tax reporting online, which then causes them to get behind and charged more fees.
Not following up with leads regularly can cause lost prospects and lack of income.
Not Enough Staff
Burning out and wanting to give up. Not to mention, not having a life because they are working all the time.
There's only so much a person can do on their own before
Not having a team usually means the entrepreneur (if established) is overwhelmed doing it all themselves which can lead to missed leads and bad PR due to mistakes made from being overwhelmed.
A business can't grow without a team. Each person should have designated tasks and training to do their job effectively and as a team achieve more success.
Staff Who Aren't Team Players
Oh boy... this is a big one and it could be one person! I will tell you, I've witnessed all of these first hand while consulting companies. Here are some examples:
Staff member who refuses to do tasks asked of them or help out when it's truly needed. I don't mean they should take on more work consistently to cover someone else because that's not ok.
Staff member who talks badly about the company or owner to others outside or in the business.
Staff members who are criminals (stealing) or literally not working when they should be (on their phone, taking lots of breaks, showing up late)
Making Things Complicated
An owner making more work for themselves because they are not organized and overwhelmed.
Adding more staff because it looks like there aren't enough to do the work but in fact, they need organizational systems and streamlined workflows.
An owner or staff adding too many steps to a workflow to "help" but it's just increasing the complexity of the workflow system and creating more work. Crazy I know but I've seen it!
Staff Not on the Same Page
Drop in communications and lack of communication systems often cause upset team members, clients and prospects.
Lack of training for individual and the team as a whole, causes the team not to be on the same page.
Individuals making up their own rules and telling other staff because the manager or owner did not create training packs and policies.
Conclusion
Success isn’t just about how hard you work, how consistent you are but who you are working with and the strategies you implement. It's about being organized and efficient and keeping your eye on the goal so you know what direction you are continually heading towards.
Let us know if this blog helped. If you would like a Free Consult, CONTACT US!
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